The Scorpion King

REVIEW
Macaroni and cheese. Extra cheese pizza. Cheese-whiz. Cheesy-poofs. They're all amateurs compared to the fromage output of director Russell's silly but action-flavored sand-and-sandals adventure. Technically a prequel to the two Brendan Fraser Mummy movies, The Scorpion King brings back wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne Johnson (you may know him as The Rock) from Mummy Returns, where he played a half-human scorpion bad guy. Here, he's not quite yet an icky, giant scorpion, but a muscular mercenary out to stop the local conqueror. Eye-rolling dialogue, plenty of battle scenes (most too quickly edited to fully appreciate) and lots of ham to go with the cheese punctuate an action film that was never meant to be taken too seriously anyway. The Scorpion King is clearly meant for its target audience (pre- and adolescent boys), and doesn't apologize for such. It's pretty much what you see is what you get. What you get is The Rock flexing and acting (or trying to act) menacing; swordplay aplenty; dumb dialogue to get you from one action scene to the next. So you were expecting Shakespeare?